|
Russia Subdued As U.S. Launches Controversial Deployment In Georgia
 |
|
American military arrived at a hotel in Tbilisi
|
TBILISI, April 30 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Unites States Tuesday launched a controversial military deployment in Georgia. This raised hackles in Russia as an advance party of 20 army instructors arrived on a mission reportedly to train Georgian troops in counter-terrorism.
The group of U.S. military flew into the Georgian capital Tbilisi after midnight and began early Tuesday to prepare the training groundwork for elite Georgian units. The task is expected to kick off in a month's time, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"This is a logistics group numbering 20 which will be tasked with organizational issues, including preparing for the arrival of the remaining instructors," Georgian Deputy Defense Minister Gela Bezhuashvili told AFP.
Meanwhile, the deployment of the U.S. military prompted a subdued response from Russia where nationalists are furious about the move.
The announcement of the U.S. deployment in February caused an outcry among politicians and generals in Russia, where the U.S. has been accused of muscling in on Moscow's traditional sphere of influence.
For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, gave his wholehearted support to the deployment of U.S. troops in Georgia as part of the international fight against terrorism.
On Monday, a high-ranking U.S. official assured Russian news agencies that the U.S. special forces would only carry out training in the ex-Soviet republic and would not be deployed in operations in the Pankisi Gorge.
The Pentagon said the team, from U.S. Special Operations Command in Europe, would be reinforced, with between 150 and 200 U.S. special operations forces personnel eventually taking part in the program.
The U.S. instructors are expected to train 2,000 Georgian soldiers and officers for allegedly anti-terrorist operations in the Pankisi Gorge neighboring Chechnya, where Russian forces are fighting a separatist insurgency.
The gorge is a lawless border area that U.S. officials believe may be harboring militants with links to al-Qaeda, the network accused, by the U.S., of (allegedly) carrying out the September 11 attacks.
The first task of the U.S. advance party is to establish where the training will take place and to evaluate the scale of the task.
Their assessment "will determine the length of the mission and the number of men who will be trained," a U.S. military spokeswoman in Tbilisi, Lieutenant-Colonel M.J. Jadick, told AFP.
A U.S. embassy official said the mission would last at least "several months."
The Kodjori military base, 20 kilometers (12 miles) southwest of Tbilisi, will be one of the locations used for the training, according to the Georgian defense ministry.
The Deputy Defense Minister said the first phase of the program would focus on training officers and would begin at the end of May or early June.
The instructors will provide about 70 days of staff training to the Georgian Defense Ministry and units of the Land Forces Command, Border Guards and other Georgian security agencies, the Pentagon said.
In addition, they will provide tactical training to Georgian battalions in light infantry tactics, including platoon-level offensive and defensive operations and basic airmobile tactics.
That part of the training is expected to take about 100 days per unit, the Pentagon said.
Currently under the program, the U.S. instructors are due to form two infantry units, a special operation battalion and a motorized unit. The four units are expected to be drilled at the same time.
|
